An intertribal network of women are training to be doulas and volunteers, strengthening cultural knowledge and healing generational trauma at the same time.

It begins and ends with smoke. Singed white sage is brushed up and down the body. Head to toe, limb to limb. This ritual smudging is meant to clear the indistinct wounds of trauma. A restless morning or ugly fight must first be washed away before each woman enters the headquarters of Tewa Women United in Espa?ola, New Mexico. In the smoke, she is grounded.

For 30 years, Tewa Women United (TWU) has brought together Indigenous women from the Tewa and other Indigenous tribes throughout Northern New Mexico’s pueblos, and across the United States, to address the problems facing their families and the larger community. At first, they met around kitchen tables and in coffee shops to discuss divorce or suicide, says Kathy Sanchez, who helped found TWU in the late 1980s. Later on, the members of TWU came to realize that these were symptoms of larger issues and generational trauma. “Why are our kids turning to alcohol? Why are the men so abusive?” Sanchez asks. “Why do we have so many sexual abuses toward women? We were asking a lot of questions about why things were the way they were.”

In recent years, the group has turned its attention to a particular problem connected to reproductive health: After African-American women, Native-American women face the second-highest rate of death during childbirth, more than twice the rate of white women. In 2003, the Tewa Birthing Project began to examine the disparities in health care for Indigenous women, particularly by creating more access to the support provided by a midwife or doula. Last year, a doula training program was organized to help broaden access to health care and create a safer birth experience with less medical intervention. It is free of charge for the students, asking only that they assist with three births within the community.

Detail of Kathy Sanchez’s office at Tewa Women United. A butterfly sits prominently in Kathy Sanchez’s office. She said the model of the butterfly "takes us away from the negativity. You are not locked in or confined." In the U.S. system, she continued, "They try to use fear and the threat to not be mobile, but to be separate." Tewa Women, instead, works to unify Indigenous cultures and to teach that strength lies in the union of Western and Native identities.

Andrea Stanley and partner Christian Gering outside Tewa Women United. Stanley, who is expecting her first child this spring, said her interest in training to become a doula directly intersected with an interest in reproductive justice. "I saw it as a way to have a direct impact in my community, to help other Native women with these different disparities we face around reproductive justice," she said. She looks at the training "as a way of empowerment. How we can reestablish traditions and the relationships we have around birth?" Stanley, whose mother is from the Navajo Nation and Acoma Pueblo, said many Native women have to rely on the Indian Health Service, which is often far from home, creating financial barriers to accessing prenatal care. "A doula can be that support to go with you to your appointments and talk to you about nutrition or breastfeeding," she said.

Altar inside the Yiya Vi Kagingdi Doula Project training space. Sage, which is used to cleanse and ground each woman who enters the Tewa Women United home, rests at an altar in the doula training room.

(Left) Workshop and training space of the Yiya Vi Kagingdi Doula Project. (Right) Aspen Mirabal, 22, at the Yiya Vi Kagingdi Doula Project training session. Espa?ola, New Mexico. “In our communities, native Indigenous communities, nobody owns property, and that is the place [where] wealth was built. . .so to own our building, to know that if funding ends or things happen, we still have a home. . .for our community it shows we are committed to being here for a while. We are here because we believe in this community,” Corrine Sanchez said. “We are located in one of the poorest counties in New Mexico, which has one of the worst reputations of high drug abuse, high overdose,” she continued. “But it is also a community that is so rich in caring for each other, love of land, all of these things we want to uplift and grow and strengthen.”

Aspen Mirabal, 22, said she has known since adolescence she wanted to be a midwife. “The last midwife died in the early 2000s and stopped practicing in the late 1990s. No one took on that education, so it kind of went with her. To establish the connection to natural birth and labor and eventually birthing in the pueblo again. . .it is this romantic perception of bringing the custom back to my people of having access to midwifery care.” Since graduating high school, she has studied with midwives in Bolivia and Guatemala and taken doula training in Georgia. But, she said the TWU program, focusing on Indigenous women in Northern New Mexico, is "geared [toward] the land that I grew up in. I was beyond myself. It was life-changing. I felt at home. I felt secure.”

On a crisp Saturday in January, 17 women met at the Tewa house on Fairview Lane in Espa?ola for their fifth month of training. The doulas-to-be sat together in a room decorated with paintings of pregnant women, the scent of herbal smoke mixed with coffee and buttered toast. Jars of corn silk, thyme, white peony, calendula flowers, lavender, and rosemary—grown in the community garden outside—were stacked on shelves, waiting to be turned into traditional remedies.

“What are the ways we can hold people, [how can we] care for the physical, spiritual world?” asked Jessica Lujan, the Indigenous Women’s Health and Reproductive Justice program manager.

On a whiteboard, Stephanie McCreary, a doula project coordinator, wrote symptoms postpartum mothers might experience: bleeding, shaking, hunger, vaginal tearing, engorgement, a broken tailbone, a prolapsed uterus. Together, the group brainstormed cures, from fuzzy socks to frozen herb- or honey-infused pads. They practiced gentle stretches and shared stories of their own births.

“I want you to think of the emotional world of the parent,” Lujan continued.

“Loss,” said Sascha Anderson, 35, whose new baby, Hildegard, cooed happily on the carpet in front of her. “Whatever you were before is now different.”

Niquita LeValdo, 31, became interested in becoming a doula after witnessing the dire lack of birth services available in South Dakota. When she was pregnant with her son, now 2 years old, and living on the Oglala LaKota Pine Ridge Reservation, LeValdo couldn’t find a midwife who would agree to assist her in a home birth. Indian Health Services, an hour from her home, had poor maternal care and a high rate of infant mortality. There was a Western hospital two hours from the reservation, but there, there would be no one from the LaKota to help guide her.

“There wasn’t anywhere to take a Lamaze class or a first-time parenting class. There wasn’t anywhere to really meet a doula or have the means to sit down with a midwife and create a birth plan,” LeValdo said. “It really hurt my heart to be there and see what other community members go through in trying to access things that should be free to everybody, but aren’t.”

LaVado is now living in New Mexico to attend the doula training and ultimately become an Indigenous midwife. Across the nation, she said, there is not only a lack of services, but an ingrained mistrust of Western care based on decades of mistreatment. For generations prior to the Indian Tribal Welfare Act of 1978, Indigenous children were taken from their families. And Native women are still reluctant to seek help around mental health care or postpartum depression, LaVado said, out of fear social services will interfere. Through TWU, however, LaVado said she feels “able to join a safe space of strong Indigenous people who are openly able to talk about these things.”

Sascha Guinn Anderson, 35, holding her daughter, Hildegard, at the Yiya Vi Kagingdi Doula Project training session. Anderson, a tribal member from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, said her experience of being immersed in the birth and parenting process drew her to the doula program while pregnant with her third child, Hildegard. “I had a doula with my first. I was living in Brooklyn at the time, which had a particular birth culture. . . . It felt like, at least from where I was sitting, that it was not accessible to everyone. We got a person who had never attended a birth before—who was amazing—and it was still pushing our price range. Birth didn’t seem super accessible,” she said. “Who are the doulas for people who aren't in this white, well-off—who aren't in that world? Who are their doulas? And also, how do we bring in ancestral, Indigenous knowledge? It is what they work on every day at Tewa Women United.”

Rio Grande Valley. Tunyo (Black Mesa) is visible to the left beyond the valley. The mission statement of Tewa Women United focuses on stopping violence, not only against Native women and girls, but against Mother Earth.

Beata Tsosie-Pe?a, 40, Health and Environmental Justice Program coordinator at the TWU offices. “Poverty, capitalism, racism, militarization, ecological destruction, sexism: these are the things around us, but that doesn’t negate our strength and power,” said Beata Tsosie-Pe?a, part of the environmental health program for Tewa Women and a doula trainee. “How do you acknowledge oppression, but not let it be our center? We are pretty resilient given that we are still in our ancestral land.”

The Espa?ola Healing Foods Oasis community garden project, spearheaded by Beata Tsosie-Pe?a, in Valdez Park. At the doula training, Jessica Lujan taught the trainees how to work with traditional herbs, many grown in the Espa?ola Healing Foods Oasis (EHFO) to help parents through the birth process. Holy basil for stress. Skullcap for anxiety and sleep. Nettles to help with bleeding, nutrient absorption. Red raspberry leaf to tone the uterus. The doulas passed around jars of the dried herbs and breathed in the smell. "Plants are powerful medicine," Lujan explained. "As doulas, we don't provide treatment, but we work with plants that heal. It's a funny gray line. We are working with plants in a way that nourishes."

Learning how to heal, not just the wounds of birth—but those carried by members of Indigenous culture more broadly—is an imperative of this space. Many of the procedures that were pushed on Sanchez when she gave birth to her daughter more than four decades ago made her feel pressured to detach from the process of birth and left her wanting a more mother-oriented mode of postpartum care. “They didn’t want us to breastfeed,” said Sanchez. “Everything was a hospital setting. We didn’t have a choice of where to go.” Her husband watched from the other side of a glass window when she gave birth.

“How do you acknowledge oppression but not let it be our center?” asked Beata Tsosie-Pe?a, 40, program coordinator for the Environmental Health and Justice Program for Tewa Women and a doula trainee. “Poverty, capitalism, racism, militarization, ecological destruction, sexism—these are the things around us, but that doesn’t negate our strength and power,” said Tsosie-Pe?a. But, she adds, “We are resilient.”

Kathy Sanchez is from San Ildefonso Pueblo and is one of about 1,500 Native Tano/Tewa speakers in the world. “It was really a back and forth and fluidity of coming to our center to uncover the strength we had as women and girls—and also our ties with Mother Earth,” said Sanchez about the founding principles of Tewa Women United. “We knew we had our strength.”

”It’s not just work for me, it is my life journey,” Corrine Sanchez said. As a child, she experienced sexual abuse and witnessed violence, and ultimately found healing in returning to her community as a young adult. She had asked herself, “How do you overcome those experiences and make those things other people don’t have to suffer through?”

Sage Vallo, Liana Joy Sanchez’s daughter. Sage Vallo was the first baby born at home at San Ildefonso Pueblo in roughly 40 years, said Sanchez. She said hospital births have too frequently been seen as the only option in the community. "All of a sudden there are hospitals and that is where you go, and why would you do it at home?" she said. "Colonization had taken away something that was so beautiful—how they so dehumanize [birth]."

Santa Clara Pueblo, about four miles south of Espa?ola along the Rio Grande. Santa Clara Pueblo is of the six Tewa-speaking pueblos in Northern New Mexico. "It is a pueblo where our ancestors used to live in cliff dwellings. . .[they would] actually have collected the rain water up on top of the cliffs and have big jars on top of their heads to carry the water," said Diana Halsey. "They were potters and they would make black or red pottery.”

(Left) Aspen Vallo, 20, Liana Joy Sanchez’s daughter, outside of TWU. (Right) Liana Joy Sanchez, daughter of Kathy Sanchez, mother of Sage, Aspen, and Jessamine Vallo. Vallo said her grandmother and aunt “have definitely set examples of what I want to be when I grow up, what I want to contribute to the Indigenous communities.” Aspen is currently studying psychology at Santa Fe Community College and wants to be a child psychologist.”When I was pregnant with my second child, my mom and sister sat me down and said, ‘Would you consider a home birth?’ My first question is, 'Who is going to pay for it?' The second question is, ‘Can I have it at your house? Because I am not bleeding on my bed,’” said Sanchez, laughing. While her first hospital birth had been challenging—with a nurse who told her not to scream during contractions—the second birth became her own. “It was just the most amazing thing. I try to let people know how amazing it was comparing the two. . .my whole family was involved.”

Jessamine Vallo, daughter of Liana Joy Sanchez. “My youngest daughter was the surprise of a lifetime,” said Sanchez. She chose to have Jessamine at the hospital because of how the baby was positioned in her cervix, but said, “The first hospital birth to the second are totally different—they have come a long way in 18 years.”

“My world is my three girls,” added Liana Joy. “How do I start making better choices to alleviate the pressure that was given to my own mom, [given] to me. . .how do I give my kids a better start than I had?”

Martha Tenorio, 26, who gave birth to her first child with the help of a TWU-trained doula. The doula, Stephanie McCreary, helped integrate Tenorio’s partner into the birthing process, teaching him massages and other exercises to alleviate pain. “I think it made our bond stronger.”

Rio Grande from White Rock Overlook Park. Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Martha Tenorio’s 17-month-old daughter, Marleia Baca, at home.

Tauz Tamu Povi, 48, and her daughter, Ahmia Roze Tamu Povi. “There is so much oppression around our community, and we felt like it starts at birth. We start healing from birth on. We wanted women to start birthing naturally and having the things they wanted and speaking up for themselves. The first set of doulas that were trained were really advocates for moms. . .a lot of grandmothers and mothers hadn’t birthed naturally, mostly because of the stories that weren’t told about traditional ways.” Tauz Tamu Povi said this is starting to change, and she is seeing more young mothers breastfeed and try to give birth naturally. “It started from a place of reproductive justice, in wanting women to have rights over their bodies during birth. Wanting women to make choices, not out of fear but out of intuition and trust in their bodies. I didn’t want our young people to feel shame or guilt, but empowered so they could move forward to be the parents they needed to be for their children.”

“It is so powerful to watch a woman give birth naturally and to find strength in their body. They reclaim this strength they didn't believe they had.”

View of the Santa Clara area. "We began to see all of these movements aren't separate, they are really intertwined," said Corrine Sanchez about the relationship between TWU's work for environmental and reproductive justice. "If [environmental] contamination is happening, that threatens reproductive ability." She said specifically on ancestral lands, within the bounds of the pueblo, "any threat for future procreation, for future generations, is a huge threat to us. These are our sacred areas, our sacred mountains. . .[we are] trying to hold corporations like Los Alamos National Laboratory accountable, and governments accountable, because protection standards are based on an Anglo, white, male [perspective]." Those standards leave women and children more vulnerable, she said.

(Left) Sunset. (Right) Diana Halsey and her daughter, Amber Wasson. “When my doula was with me at my birth is what made me want to become a doula,” said Diana Halsey, Indigenous Women’s Health’s program assistant. “My mom stood back and it was mostly my doula helping me get through my contractions. My doula stayed there the whole time. . .I wasn't worried at all. I felt like it was in my doula’s hands and I could just go with the flow.” Halsey helped create TWU’s Doula Training program, teaching doulas how to guide parents from pregnancy into parenthood and learn how to bond, sing, and move with their new babies, as well as trusting their intuition. “I felt like I got all of the help that I needed and support and the guidance—and it didn't stop at my birth. It continued and it is still continuing. My daughter is 9 [years old], and I feel like I am passing on this way of being a mother's helper to families to my daughter.” Especially, Halsey said, when Indigenous doulas are able to work with Indigenous women, “they have better knowledge around culture and about boundaries. . .and about the respect when they come in to that village and that home.”

(Left) Alana Naranjo of the A’Gin Healthy Sexuality and Body Sovereignty Project, which is developing educational curriculum to help empower healthy relationships, at the TWU offices. (Right) Celina Hokeah, project coordinator of the TWU A’Gin Healthy Sexuality and Body Sovereignty Project.Hokeah teaches sixth through eighth grade students healthy life and relationship skills, sex education, and consent. And unlike a tradition curriculum, both boys and girls learn in the same classroom, “because we want to teach them to be accountable for each other,” Hokeah said.

“It’s been life-changing,” she added about her role, “To be able to work with the kids in my community, the children in my community, especially when I know what families they come from. A lot of the communities we work with are families in poverty,” she said. “. . .We teach the students ways to be resilient.”

(Left) Elder Rachele Agoyo is a saya (grandmother) in the TWU Sayain (Circle of Grandmothers), which provides cultural guidance to the Tewa Women United community. (Right) Veronica Krupnick (Hopi), community facilitator for the A’Gin Healthy Sexuality and Body Sovereignty Project.